US MIDTERM ELECTIONS: Democrats Pick Up Two House Seats in Early Returns

Democrats faced mixed results in early returns on Tuesday night, with voters delivering some disappointments for a party hoping their energized base would offer a striking repudiation of President Donald Trump.

While money and momentum favored the Democrats, the party seized just two of the 23 seats in they need to take the House in the first wave of returns, with victories for Donna Shalala, in Florida, and Jennifer Wexton, in Virginia. Several tight races Democrats hoped to win in Florida remained in Republican control.

About three hours after the first set of polls closed, as votes were counted in 40 states, most of the key races remained too close to call.

Millions of Americans had marched to the polls to vote in one of the hardest-fought, most expensive and perhaps most consequential midterm elections in political memory. The election motivated Americans from both parties, with races around the country seeing signs of powerful voter turnout across the country, all but certain to surpass the numbers who voted in the 2014 midterms.

The election became for many a referendum on American values in the Trump era.

Democrats faced mixed results in early returns on Tuesday night, with voters delivering some disappointments for a party hoping their energized base would offer a striking repudiation of President Donald Trump.